Great Adventure
by xKitxKat
Summary: While playing b-ball, Troy remembers an advernture that they went through a few years back. Much to their enjoyment, Troy re-tells the whole story.


**Great Adventure**

**A.N.- This isn't how I normaly write, I had to write this for a Picture Prompt in school. This is NOTHING like my stories to come will be. Thanks! R&R!**

The four teenage boys were sprawled on Troy's full size basketball court, after playing an exhausting game of two-on-two, talking about everything and nothing at all, when Troy remembered one of his favorite memories with his friends

The four teenage boys were sprawled on Troy's full size basketball court, after playing an exhausting game of two-on-two, talking about everything and nothing at all, when Troy remembered one of his favorite memories with his friends. The boys had known each other since kindergarten and often tried to outdo one another with amusing stories of their younger years.

"Hey guys," he asked, "do you remember that day, seven or so years ago, when we went to see the alien crash site and we got caught in the bigger adventure?"

"Yeah, now that you say that, I do." Chad agreed.

"Could we get something to eat, please, instead of one of your long 'remember when' stories," pleaded Zeke.

Troy and his friends moved into the teenager's house. Troy threw some leftover meatball pizza into the oven to warm up.

"OK, now," Troy began, "This was seven years ago, right around New Year's Eve. It was abnormally warm for December, so we decided to ride to the latest alien crash site. We didn't know what to expect, so on the lengthy ride we were making up comical stories about what the aliens looked like. Since we live in New Mexico, we all had heard the alien stories from my dad and his friends."

"Since we were only eight or nine years old, and didn't have our drivers' licenses, we had decided to ride our bicycles. We knew we were going on an adventure because we were searching for a UFO. We didn't know we were actually headed toward a different adventure."

Troy continued, "We rode our bikes, to the outskirts of town, miles from home, riding through the state park at the edge of town, when the bike path started to crack. I'm not sure which of us noticed it first..."

"I did. I saw the jagged crack across the bike path." Jason interrupted.

"Yes, it was you, that's right." Troy continued, glaring at Jason. "So Jason noticed it, and then..."  
"I noticed it second!" Zeke added.

"Yes, you did. Would you guys just let me tell the story?!" Troy shouted, annoyed. "So, we were riding along, talking about school and the basketball team, when Jason, then Zeke, noticed the ground cracking and collapsing in front of us. Then it clicked inside my head: it's a sinkhole! Dad worked for the police department and I remembered his stories about people crashing when a car gets caught in a sinkhole and falls into the earth.

"By the time we all realized what we were seeing, the ground we were riding on had dropped about five feet! It seemed that which ever direction we looked, the rumbling ground kept falling. By the time we had ridden 15 feet, the ground had collapsed 15 feet down. The hole was about 100 yards long and as wide as we could see. As a little kid, this was really huge, and more adventure than we wanted. It wasn't long until the hole with us in it sank to at least 20 feet deep. Then suddenly the ground shook."

"That's when I yelled RUN!" Chad interjected. "I hollered for all of us to get off our bikes. We were scared rabbits scrambling to drop our bikes and run as fast as possible.

"So the ground again dropped straight down beneath us. We had kept running to try to escape, but we were caught in the middle of it all! We must have fallen at least 50 feet, but it sure felt like a mile. When we thought we were going to land on the hard, broken bike path, we were shocked when we bounced! We landed near our bikes, on someone's trampoline!" Troy kept talking.

"After bouncing up and down a few times, the trampoline settled down and we nervously got off. We discovered our bikes, a little scratched and dented, lying about 50 feet away."

"DING!" The oven signaled the pizza was hot.

Without noticing the "ding" or Zeke walking over to the oven, Troy continued, "We walked cautiously over and picked up our bikes. Then looked at what had fallen in the hole with us. There were almost ten houses plus half the park sunken into the ground. Fortunately the park was next to a neighborhood. As frightening as the fall was, we knew someone would come running to help. We waited and listened, but nothing happened. No one was home anywhere, I guess since it was early afternoon, all the adults were at work.

"Of course, it was obvious, even across town, that the ground had collapsed. The groan that the earth made was louder than a jet taking off. Within five minutes there were a half dozen fire trucks, police cars, and ambulances. The police officers were too worried about the crackling power lines and erupting pipes that they yelled through their megaphones to stay put and stay calm. We wanted to get out too badly, so we didn't listen to them.

"It was Chad's idea to look in the houses and garages to find some possible way out. We figured ladders would be too short. We could never throw ropes to the top and wrap anything to pull us up. No one else was in the hole since it was the middle of the day, so we could find no adults to help us. Now remember, we were only 8 years old, so we were getting very worried. Zeke wanted to find snacks and juice boxes. All the electricity was off, so we tugged on every garage door to see if we could get inside. Then, Chad, you found the good house, with lots of possible options to get out of the sink hole."

"Yeah," Chad said, "that house had two ATV's, motorbikes, fireworks and plenty of matches. I was lucky my uncle lived on the farm and taught me how to ride. My mom never liked when I rode his motor bike through the wheat fields in Kansas. That day I was really glad I never listened to her worries."

After shooting a look that said 'this is my story' at Chad, Troy continued his narration. "We followed Chad into the garage and pulled out the motorbikes, ATV's and some fireworks. We figured we could strap the fireworks to our bikes and shoot ourselves out of the hole. If that didn't work, we thought we could ride the 4-wheelers over the broken road and try to ride up the side of the sink hole. If that didn't work, we would try the motorbikes. We just knew it would take a lot of power to lift us out of that deep, dangerous hole.

"Zeke and Jason decided to go first. I wrapped tape around and around the rocket and the back fender of each bicycle. Chad and I scratched the matches against the strip on the box. We stood to the side of the bikes and lit the fireworks. It took a few seconds to get the fuses lit, but once they were lit, the rocket bikes took off! Chad and I barely had time to get away from the bikes and avoid getting burned.

"Chad and I wanted to escape too, but we knew that it was going to be to dangerous to light the fuses by ourselves, judging by the way Jason and Zeke lurched when they took off.

"So Jason and Zeke made it to the top without us. Chad started to whimper like he was going to cry."

"Hey!" Chad punched Troy in the shoulder, "I was petrified my mom was going to kill me for riding so far from home and breaking into someone else's house."

"Anyway," Troy persisted, "Jason and Zeke made it to the top of the sink hole. They promised to get home and find our parents. We were afraid of getting into trouble for breaking the path of the park and being so far from home, but we were more afraid of never getting out of the hole.

"That's when I decided we had to try something else from that garage," Chad jumped into the story, "We went back to get the motorbikes. I knew how to ride one, and how to rev the motor. I realized it was our best hope. Troy, you and I took the bikes back over to the main street and revved the motors. Together we yelled '1, 2, 3, GO!'"

"It felt like flying across the pavement. I remember closing my eyes as I pointed the front wheel at a huge, ancient tree to launch my bike toward the rest of the world, 50 feet above me," continued Troy. "It was so exhilarating and frightening at the same time. I was headed toward the sun!

"Amazingly, the two motor bikes survived the journey. We didn't consider the risks. We were eight years old and wanted to get home and not get in trouble. Once Chad and I made it out, we found Zeke, Jason and my dad waiting for us."

"Yeah, your dad first thought we were trying to make trouble for you. He couldn't believe the story of the sinkhole and the trampoline and the fireworks. When I showed him the empty firework shell still taped to my bicycle, he grasped the idea that there was something to our elaborate story." Jason added. "When we told our parents where we were, they were shocked, but they didn't believe the tale, only Troy's dad did. The emergency vehicles had nearly all moved out by the time we got back; there was only a lone ambulance and police car. When we proved to the EMT we were fine, they left, so did the police officer.

"You know," Jason commented, "I had nearly forgotten that day. We certainly didn't realize what we were in for. We thought we were going to a UFO crash site, and look how our adventure changed." All the boys laughed.

Troy had been so engulfed in his monologue that he hadn't realized that Zeke had returned with the reheated pizza from the oven. His slice was now cold and mushy, again.

"Remember that other time when we hiked out into the desert to find that UFO crash site behind the warehouses?" Chad asked.

"No. I guess I wasn't along that time." Zeke said.

"Oh, yes you were. You heard about it on the radio and made us all swear to secrecy. We snuck away from baseball practice one Saturday morning." Chad explained.

"I did?"

"Yep, I'll tell that story..."


End file.
